Despite what you may think, SEC basketball is not at a modern-day low.

That happened last year.

The SEC is marginally better this season — for what little that’s worth.

The SEC has one very good team (Florida) and one very talented but mismanaged team (Kentucky). After that, it’s a logjam of mediocrity, followed by a bottom tier of misery.

In three weeks, the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee will remind us just how bad things have gotten. On the high holy day of hoops, Selection Sunday, no more than four and perhaps as few as two SEC teams will make it into the 68-team bracket.

That will make it five times in the past six years the SEC hasn’t sent at least five representatives to the NCAAs. Contrast that with the period from 1997-2008, when the SEC averaged 5.7 NCAA bids per season. And that was with a 12-member conference.

Let’s put this into perspective: Most experts have the Big 12 with seven NCAA Tournament-worthy teams. And the Big 12 actually has only 10 members. The 10-school American Athletic Conference should get six into the NCAAs, with Memphis among them.

In other words, the Big 12 figures to get 70 percent of its teams into the bracket and the American 60 percent. Even if the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee has a brain cramp and gives bids to four SEC teams, that’s just 28.6 percent.

What gives? Sure, it’s a football conference, but that’s always been the case. Just because the league’s focus is on those three little letters that mean so much — BCS — that doesn’t mean so many schools should be content with the NIT.

Some argue that one-and-done players, eroding fundamentals and a fixation on reaching that magic land known as the next level — among other things — have undermined college basketball. While that might be the case, why has it hit the SEC harder than other conferences?

Could it have something to do with coaching? Half the league’s 14 head coaches have been in their current positions three years or fewer. It seems like Ole Miss’ Andy Kennedy is always a win or a loss away from keeping or losing his job — and he’s the SEC’s third-longest tenured coach, at eight years.

That kind of transition indicates most SEC athletics directors do a better job of firing basketball coaches than hiring them.

The result is a conference that has lost its way on the basketball court. The RPI, a key component in assessing the strengths and weaknesses of teams by the selection committee, ranks the SEC no better than seventh among the nation’s conferences. And that is a major sticking point for SEC teams with NCAA Tournament aspirations.

There are differences of opinion among the top bracket projectors as it relates to the SEC. Some have four SEC teams in the NCAAs — Florida, Kentucky, Missouri and Arkansas. Another has it down to three — Florida, Kentucky and Tennessee.

Clearly, the Vols’ worth as an NCAA entry is a point of contention. It is fitting that there would be so much debate over UT. The Vols’ season has been a roller-coaster. You never know from one game to the next what you’re getting. The same team that beat ACC champ Virginia by 35 and led undefeated Wichita State midway through the second half also has lost twice to Texas A&M.

Even if the Vols beat Auburn and Missouri this week and extend their winning streak to four, they probably need to win at least one and perhaps two games in the SEC Tournament to feel good about their NCAA chances.

UT isn’t alone among SEC teams on the bubble. And that’s a problem because the bubble is more like a blimp this year. More than a dozen teams around the country have legitimate arguments for getting off the bubble and into the bracket. Accordingly, every win and every loss shuffle the position on the bubble.

And for the SEC, that means bubble trouble.

David Climer’s columns appear on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Reach him at 615-259-8020 and on Twitter @DavidClimer.